My partner just started riding as well, she ended up with a scooter (if you can call something 500cc, and has 3 wheels a scooter -
http://www.gilerafuoco.com/index.html?lang=eng ) as her first 'bike' and in the last two months has racked up about 3000km so far.
Her goal, to ride to Melbourne with me to the National Rally in march. She did her first distance ride of 450km each way a few weeks back, no problems!
There are some really nice learner bikes out there now, so its worth looking around :)
The Sena headset is a great thing, as is a go-pro mounted to your bike, so you can show her what she is doing wrong, and what she could do better after each ride.
Most of all, I hope she enjoys it :)